Chapter 9: The Kebab and the Blood
The kebab was perfect.
Layla watched Amir struggle with the pronunciation for the third time, his mouth shaping around the word like it was a foreign object, which, technically, it was. He kept saying it like "kay-bob," which was wrong, so wrong, and she had been correcting him for ten minutes because it was funny and because his ears went pink when she laughed.
"Say it again," she said.
"Kebab."
"Kebob."
"That's what I said."
"That is not what you said."
He set down his fork. The lamb on his plate had gone cold twenty minutes ago, but he hadn't complained once. He never complained. That was one of the things she loved about him—the way he could sit across from her while his food went cold and his ears went pink and his eyes stayed on her face like she was the only thing in the room worth looking at.
"I'm not saying it again," he said.
"One more time."
"Layla."
"One more time, habibi. For me."
He sighed. He picked up his fork. He said, very deliberately, "Kebab."
It came out like "kay-bob" again. Layla put her hand over her mouth and snorted into her palm.
"You're doing it on purpose," she said.
"I am not doing it on purpose."
"You're doing it on purpose because you know it makes me laugh."
"Maybe I like making you laugh."
"Then you're a better man than I thought."
He smiled. That slow, quiet smile that started in his eyes and spread down to his mouth, the one that made her want to crawl across the table and kiss him in front of the entire restaurant. She didn't. She was Layla Mansour, and she had self-control. Mostly.
The restaurant was one of those places that tried very hard to feel intimate—dim gold lights, embroidered silk draped over the booths, a candle in a glass jar between them that had burned down to a stutter. The air smelled like sumac and lamb and rosewater tea, and somewhere in the back, a radio was playing Fairuz so quietly that Layla could only hear it when she stopped talking.
It was expensive. Too expensive. Amir had been saving for weeks, she knew, because he'd told her he wanted to take her somewhere nice for her birthday, and she'd told him not to, and he'd done it anyway. That was Amir. He did things anyway.
"My mother called me yesterday," she said.
"You didn't tell me."
"It wasn't important."
"It's always important when your mother calls."
Layla picked at the edge of the baklava on her plate. The pistachios were crushed fine and green, the honey glaze still warm enough to leave a sheen on her finger. Her mother had spent the afternoon making it. She'd barely looked at Layla when she handed her the plate, but she'd handed her the plate.
"She asked about the apartment," Layla said. "The one you found. In Wedding."
"What did you tell her?"
"That it has a balcony."
"That's it?"
"She wanted to know if the balcony got sun. I said I didn't know. She said that was irresponsible of me."
Amir laughed. It was a real laugh, the kind that crinkled his whole face. "She's not wrong."
"She's never wrong. It's a curse."
"Or a gift."
"Or a gift." Layla took a bite of the baklava. The honey stuck to her teeth and the pistachios crunched between them, and she closed her eyes for a second because she was full and warm and happy and she wanted to remember what this felt like. "She also asked if you knew how to fix a sink."
"I can fix a sink."
"Can you?"
"No."
"Then don't tell her."
"I won't."
The waiter came by and refilled their water glasses without asking. He was young, maybe twenty, with a thin mustache and the kind of tired eyes that said he'd been working doubles all week. He glanced at Amir's plate of cold lamb and then at Amir, and something passed between them—a look of solidarity that Layla recognized as one man telling another be grateful for what you've got. Then the waiter was gone, and Layla and Amir were alone again in their small circle of gold light.
"You're not eating," Amir said.
"I'm full."
"You've eaten four bites."
"I've eaten enough."
He looked at her. She knew that look. It was the look he'd been giving her for the past three months, ever since she told him she was pregnant—the look that said I know you're lying and I'm going to let you pretend but I'm going to keep watching. She'd hated it at first. Now she'd gotten used to it. Now she almost needed it.
"I had a big lunch," she said.
"You had half a sandwich."
"Fine. I'm nervous. It's hard to eat when I'm nervous."
"You're nervous?"
"I'm meeting your mother again next weekend. I'm meeting your whole family. Of course I'm nervous."
He reached across the table and took her hand. His fingers were warm and dry and slightly calloused at the tips from the shop. She curled her fingers into his and held on.
"She already likes you," he said. "She told me she liked you."
"When?"
"After the dinner. She said you were polite and you didn't stare at her floors."
"Her floors are very clean."
"She's proud of that."
"I know. That's why I didn't stare."
He laughed again. She liked that sound. She had loved it since they were kids, since they were seven and nine and running through the alley behind her building with paper planes and pocket change, and he'd laughed at something she said and she'd spent the next eleven years trying to make it happen again.
"I like you," she said.
"I know."
"You're supposed to say something back."
"You know I like you."
"I want to hear it."
"You're impossible."
"You say those words like they're a compliment."
"They are."
She was about to say something else—something ridiculous, probably, something that would make him blush and look away and pretend he hadn't heard, because that was her favorite thing—when it hit her.
A cramp.
Not the small, twingey kind she'd been getting for weeks, the ones the doctor said were normal, the ones that came and went like clouds. This was different. This was a fist, closing, twisting, clenching in the low part of her belly, and it came from nowhere and it hurt so suddenly that she couldn't breathe.
She didn't make a sound.
She didn't want to scare him. She didn't want to be the reason the night ended. She sat there with her hand in his and her eyes on the candle and she waited for it to pass.
It passed.
It took maybe ten seconds. Fifteen. She counted them, silently, one-two-three-four, and then it was gone and she could breathe again.
She exhaled.
"Are you okay?" Amir said.
"Fine."
"You made a face."
"I didn't make a face."
"You made a face like you ate a lemon."
"I ate a pistachio. Pistachios are aggressive."
He tilted his head. He was doing the watching thing again. She gave him a look—the one that said stop, the one that said I'm fine, the one that said let's not do this here—and after a moment, he nodded and let it go.
The waiter came back with the check. Amir pulled out his wallet. Layla watched him count the euros, watched the way his brows furrowed when he was doing math in his head, and she reached for her water glass and took a sip.
The second cramp hit before she could set the glass down.
This one was worse. Much worse. It seized her from the inside, clamped down like a vice, and she felt something give—something wet and wrong—and the water glass slipped from her hand and spilled across the table and she heard herself gasp.
"Layla."
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"I'm—" She stopped. She put her hand on her stomach. She could feel the heat of the cramp radiating up through her veins, can feel it spreading into her thighs, into her lower back, into the place where her body met the chair. She looked down and the embroidered cloth on the seat was dark, too dark, and her brain took a second to catch up to what her eyes were seeing.
Blood.
She was bleeding.
"Excuse me," she said. "I need—I need to use the bathroom."
She stood up. Too fast. The room tilted and she put a hand on the table to steady herself. Amir was standing too, already, reaching for her, but she pushed past him.
"Layla—"
"I'll be right back."
She walked to the bathroom on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else. The restaurant hummed around her—the murmur of other conversations, the clink of silverware, the low hum of Fairuz still coming from the back—and she moved through it like a ghost, like she was watching herself from above, and she pushed open the door to the bathroom and locked it behind her and leaned against the sink.
The mirror fogged with her breath.
She looked at herself. At the mascara she'd put on that morning, already smudged at the corners. At the burgundy scarf she'd wrapped so carefully before she left the apartment, now crooked and damp at her hairline.
She lifted her dress.
Her underwear was soaked through, dark red, almost black in the low light. The blood had already run down her inner thigh. She stared at it, at the fabric, at the mess of it, and something inside her head went very quiet.
No.
She wadded up toilet paper and pressed it against herself and sat down on the toilet and waited. The cramp came again—harder, longer, a wave that crested and broke and crested again—and she bit down on her knuckle to keep from making noise.
When she looked at the paper again it was drenched.
She was crying. She hadn't noticed, but she was crying, tears running down her face and dripping into her lap, and she couldn't catch her breath, and the pain was blurring her vision into streaks of light and dark.
She reached for her phone.
Her purse was in the booth. With Amir.
She pressed her forehead against the cold tile wall and dug her nails into her palms and tried to think. She couldn't think. Her body was doing things she couldn't control and her brain was full of static and the only clear thought in her head was his name.
She pulled out her phone from her dress pocket. She always kept it there, no purse needed, and thank God, thank God, thank God.
She called him.
He picked up on the first ring.
"Layla? What's—"
"Amir." Her voice cracked down the middle. "Amir, I need you to bring me my purse."
"What?"
"My purse. It's in the booth. Bring it to me."
"Layla, what's going on?"
"Amir, please." She was sobbing now. She couldn't help it. The tears were coming so hard she could barely speak around them. "Please just—I need my purse—I need you to come to the bathroom door—I need you—"
He hung up.
She sat there.
Then the door handle rattled.
"Layla. Layla, open the door."
"It's—it's locked—"
"Then unlock it."
"I can't—I can't get up—"
"Layla, I swear to God, if you don't unlock this door I'm going to break it down—"
She heard it in his voice. The panic. The fear. She'd never heard that in his voice before. Not once, not in twelve years. It was a different sound. It was the sound of the ground falling out from underneath someone.
She reached up and twisted the lock.
The door burst open.
Amir stood there with her purse in one hand and his tie crooked and his face white. He looked at her—crumpled on the floor, dress hiked up, blood on the tile, tears running down her chin—and he didn't hesitate. He didn't flinch. He dropped to his knees beside her and pulled her into his arms.
"What happened," he said. "Tell me what happened."
"I'm bleeding."
"I can see that. How much?"
"I don't know. A lot. Amir, I think—" She couldn't say it. She couldn't say the words. But he heard them anyway, in the way her voice broke, in the way her body shook against his, in the way she couldn't look at him.
He held her tighter.
He rocked her, slowly, one arm around her back and one hand on her head. He pressed his mouth into her hair and he whispered something in German, something low and soft and steady, and even though she only understood a few words of it—Ich bin hier, I'm here—she understood enough.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said. "I'm right here. I'm right here."
The restaurant hummed on outside the locked door. Dishes clinked. Someone laughed. Fairuz sang about loss and longing and the beautiful pain of it, and the smell of sumac and lamb and rosewater tea seeped under the door like smoke, and the floor beneath them was cold and streaked with blood, and Layla shook and shook and shook in his arms, and Amir held her, and held her, and held her.
The cramping came in waves. Layla counted them without meaning to—one, then another, then another—each one tighter than the last, like her body was trying to expel something it had decided it didn't want.
She felt it happen.
Not the way she'd imagined, not the way the books described, not the way her mother had explained it when she was twelve and scared and bleeding through her school uniform for the first time. This was different. This was a pressure that built and built and then released, and with the release came a wetness she couldn't stop, and she knew.
She knew.
"Amir."
"I'm here."
"I think—" She couldn't finish. She pressed her face into his chest and felt the words dissolve before they formed.
He didn't ask her to say it. He just held her tighter, one hand flat against her back, the other cradling the base of her skull. His breath was hot and uneven against her hair.
"I know," he said. "I know."
The tile was cold under her legs. The blood had spread—not a lot, not the horror-movie amount she'd feared in her worst midnight thoughts, but enough. Enough to soak through her underwear and stain the inside of her thighs and pool in a small, dark circle beneath her. Enough to make the air smell like copper and salt.
She looked at it. She couldn't stop looking at it.
"That's—" She pointed. Her hand was shaking. "That's the baby. That's—"
"Don't look at it."
"I can't—"
"Layla." He cupped her face with both hands and turned her toward him. His eyes were wet, but his voice was steady. "Don't look at it. Look at me."
She looked at him.
His jaw was tight. His lashes were clumped together. There was a smear of her blood on his shirt collar, and he hadn't noticed, and he wouldn't care if he did. He looked at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered, like the floor wasn't covered in the worst thing that had ever happened to either of them.
"I need to call someone," he said.
"Who?"
"A doctor. An ambulance. Someone."
"No." The word came out sharp. "No, I don't want—I can't—people will see—"
"Layla—"
"I can't walk out of here like this. I can't sit in a waiting room with strangers looking at me. I can't."
He was quiet for a moment. She could see him thinking, could see the gears turning behind his eyes, the same way they turned when he was doing math or fixing a circuit or trying to figure out how to tell her something she didn't want to hear.
"Okay," he said. "Okay. We go home."
"Home?"
"My apartment. It's closer. My mother's there. She'll know what to do."
"She'll see me like this."
"She's seen worse."
"That's not—"
"She's had two miscarriages." He said it flat, no inflection, like he was reading from a textbook. "Before me. Before my sister. She told me once. When she was drunk. She'll know what to do."
Layla stared at him.
"You never told me that."
"I didn't think I'd need to."
She didn't argue. She didn't have the strength.
He stood up first. He reached down and pulled her to her feet, slowly, carefully, like she was made of glass that had already been dropped once. Her legs buckled when she put weight on them, and he caught her, and she leaned into him and let him take all of it.
Her purse was on the floor. He picked it up. He opened it and pulled out the small pack of tissues she always kept in the inner pocket, and he handed them to her without a word.
She cleaned herself as best she could. It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But she wiped the worst of it from her thighs and her hands and balled up the tissues and threw them in the trash, and she straightened her dress and pulled her scarf back into place, and she looked at herself in the mirror.
She looked like someone who had just lost everything.
"Ready?" Amir said.
"No."
"Me neither."
He unlocked the door and stepped out first. He checked the hallway—empty—and then gestured for her to follow. She walked behind him with her head down, one hand gripping his elbow, the other pressed against her stomach like she could hold something inside that was already gone.
The restaurant hummed on. The waiter with the thin mustache was clearing a table in the corner. A couple near the window was laughing at something on a phone. The Fairuz song had ended, replaced by something slower, sadder, a woman's voice singing about a house that no one lived in anymore.
Amir walked to their booth and grabbed his jacket and her coat. He threw too many euros on the table—more than the bill, way more—and he didn't wait for change. He put his arm around Layla's waist and guided her toward the door.
The waiter looked up.
"Everything okay?"
"Fine," Amir said. "Just tired."
The waiter nodded. He didn't ask questions. He'd seen enough late nights and early mornings to know when not to.
The door opened. The night air hit Layla's face, cold and sharp and smelling like rain that hadn't fallen yet. The street outside was quiet—just a few cars, a few lights, a few people walking home with their hands in their pockets.
Amir's car was parked half a block away. A small gray Golf, old and dented and reliable. He opened the passenger door for her and helped her in and closed the door and walked around to the driver's side.
When he got in, he didn't start the engine right away.
He sat there with his hands on the wheel and his eyes on nothing, and Layla watched him and waited, and after a long moment he turned to look at her.
"I love you," he said.
"I know."
"I'm going to take care of you."
"I know."
"I'm not going to leave."
"I know."
He reached over and took her hand. He held it for a second, two, five. Then he let go and started the engine and pulled out into the street.
They drove in silence. The city moved past them in streaks of amber and red—the same colors as the restaurant, the same gold light, the same warm glow, but different now. Everything was different now. Layla pressed her forehead against the cold window and watched the buildings slide by and tried not to think about the small, dark circle on the restaurant floor that someone would have to clean up.
She thought about it anyway.
She thought about the baby. About the thing that had been growing inside her for four months, the thing she had started to talk to in her head at night, the thing she had named in secret—not a real name, not yet, just a word, just a placeholder, just something to hold onto.
She thought about the apartment in Wedding. The one with the balcony. The one whose sun exposure she didn't know. The one she would never bring a baby home to.
She thought about her mother's baklava and her father's prayer beads and the look on his face when he said you are still my daughter.
She thought about Amir's hands on the wheel. Steady. Sure. The same hands that had held her on the bathroom floor. The same hands that would hold her again.
She closed her eyes.
The car stopped. She heard Amir turn off the engine. She heard him get out and walk around and open her door. She felt his arm slide around her waist and his voice in her ear, low and gentle.
"We're here."
She opened her eyes.
His building was old, a five-story walk-up with a broken buzzer and a cracked tile floor in the entryway. She'd been here before, a handful of times, always in the daylight, always with the excuse of studying or coffee or nothing at all. She knew the stairwell. She knew which step creaked. She knew the smell of his mother's cooking coming through the door on the third floor.
She climbed the stairs slowly, one hand on the railing, one hand in Amir's. Her legs were weak. Her head was spinning. But she climbed.
At the door, Amir paused.
"My mother's going to ask questions," he said.
"I know."
"She's going to fuss."
"I know."
"She's going to make you tea and put a blanket on you and call you poor thing and you're going to hate it."
"I know."
He looked at her. She looked back.
"I don't hate it," she said. "I just want it to be over."
He nodded. He unlocked the door.
The apartment was warm and small and smelled like rosemary and garlic and something sweet she couldn't place. Salma was in the kitchen, her back to them, humming something tuneless. She turned when she heard the door.
Her face changed.
Amir didn't explain. He didn't have to. Salma took one look at Layla—at the bloodstains on her dress, at the tears on her cheeks, at the way she was leaning on her son like she couldn't stand on her own—and she understood.
She crossed the room in three steps and pulled Layla into her arms.
Layla broke.
She sobbed into Salma's shoulder, ugly and loud and raw, and Salma held her with both arms and murmured something in Tunisian Arabic that Layla didn't understand but felt anyway. Amir stood behind them with his hands at his sides, watching, and then he turned and walked to the window and stood there with his back to them, and his shoulders shook, once, twice, and then went still.
The tea kettle whistled.
Salma pulled back and cupped Layla's face in her hands and looked at her with those dark, steady eyes that had seen two miscarriages and a revolution and a marriage that had crossed an ocean.
"You're going to be okay," she said in German. "You hear me? You're going to be okay."
Layla nodded. She didn't believe it. But she nodded.
Salma guided her to the couch and wrapped her in a blanket and put a pillow behind her head. She went to the kitchen and came back with a cup of tea and pressed it into Layla's hands. She sat down beside her and put a hand on her knee and said nothing.
Amir came over and sat on the floor at Layla's feet. He rested his head against her knee and closed his eyes. She put her hand on his head and ran her fingers through his hair and felt the warmth of the teacup against her palm and the weight of Salma's hand on her knee and the blanket soft against her skin.
The room was quiet.
The tea was hot.
The night was not over.
But Layla was still here. Amir was still here. Salma was still here, and the apartment smelled like rosemary and garlic and something sweet she couldn't place, and somewhere in the distance a car honked and a dog barked and the city kept moving the way it always did.
Layla took a sip of tea.
She thought about the apartment in Wedding. The balcony. The sun. The baby she would never hold.
She thought about her father's prayer beads.
She thought about tomorrow.
And she kept drinking her tea.